The first Margaritaville Casino opened in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 2011. Which one? The first named location from the new company, Margaritaville Holdings, Inc., was the Margaritaville restaurant at the Universal CityWalk in Orlando in 1999.īuffett licensed the name to a Florida developer to create a $50 million oceanfront hotel in Pensacola in 2010 promising "barefoot elegance," which kicked off the run of Margaritaville luxury hotels. The men hit it off and formed a partnership. But in the 90s he met John Cohlan, then senior vice president of finance at the investment firm that owned Arby’s and Long John Silver’s. Buffett sued, won, and immediately began branding the name everywhere he could.īuffett opened a few places on his own, such as T-shirt shops and restaurants and then the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West in 1987. Restaurant chain Chi-Chi's tried to trademark "Margaritaville" as a drink special.
It began, more or less, when someone else tried to. How did Jimmy Buffett create the Margaritaville company? Here's what you need to know about Margaritaville.
In a somewhat more practical sense, it's a multi-billion-dollar global lifestyle brand in the form of Margaritaville-themed stores, hotels, bars, frozen shrimp, restaurants, daiquiri makers, pickleball paddles, beer, water parks, a SiriusXM radio station, luxury resorts, tequila, footwear, chips, salsa, casinos, retirement villages, salad dressing and Buffett’s Coral Reefer THC, all resulting from one man's catchy 1977 hit.
It's a state of mind more than a place, that lazy-afternoon-sipping-drinks-and-watching-the-world-go-by feeling that embodies Key West, or at least the Key West that Jimmy Buffett has been singing about for 50 years.Īccording to Margaritaville's website, it's in the tropics "somewhere between the Port of Indecision and Southwest of Disorder." Watch Video: Colorado couple explain move to Daytona Beach